After my experience with formal education, I decided that the most productive and rewarding path for a modern philosopher lay outside of the academic system, so I chose to work and teach independently online.

I appreciate the rejection of academia, and I liked his criticism of Alex Epstein, so I wrote a letter to him, below:

Alex liked me and said I was one of the few people smart enough to contribute ideas to CIP. He has some good qualities, but I broke things off with him because of his unwillingness to discuss some disagreements to a resolution, and a few other flaws. He was content to ignore the disagreements, but I wasn't. Later I saw he was trying to do social status climbing and to suck up to various groups in ways I thought were immoral (see link #3 above for some info). I think Alex is on the road to become Gail Wynand (as the best case scenario, if he gets what he wants rather than staying somewhat obscure).

Some of the original disagreements:

Following Thomas Szasz, I consider "mental illness" a myth and psychiatry dangerous. Alex says things that aid psychiatry and refused to stop and replace them with neutral statements, while also refusing to refute my arguments or Szasz's books.

I wanted to discuss Popper and induction, but Alex chose never to get around to it. (This I could have accepted, but I think it's worth mentioning.)

Alex was unwilling to read the criticism of sustainability in The Beginning of Infinity by David Deustsch (a physicist and philosopher who is an Ayn Rand fan, a Popperian, and who I worked with extensively and learned a lot from for many years). I thought this was unreasonable because there aren't that many philosophical allies for Alex writing new books, so I considered it his job to become familiar with highly relevant ideas in his field. http://beginningofinfinity.com

We had some disagreements about physics which got in the way of Alex publishing an article about sustainability I was working on for him. (If Alex had read The Beginning of Infinity, he could have learned the physics I was talking about and how it's relevant to anti-sustainability arguments.)

Alex wasn't serious and careful enough about fact checking and sources/citations. See link #2 above for an example. I consider almost everyone to do an inadequate job with this. I have a scholarship blog category which mostly contains criticisms of various intellectual and books for this kind of problem. http://curi.us/archives/list_category/77

In drafts for Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, Alex attacked the tobacco industry and smokers. I asked him not to and thought it was an unnecessary tangent in addition to being wrong, but he kept it in. After the book came out, I criticized it in post #1 linked above.

Alex thought I was too arrogant because I criticized Peikoff. He said I should give Peikoff the benefit of the doubt. I did give Peikoff the benefit of the doubt, a ton, but I still reached some critical views anyway. (Despite his flaws, I still appreciate lots of Peikoff's work, especially his old audio recordings. I generally find his old stuff superior to his new stuff. My guess is it's because back then either Rand was still alive and guiding him, or less time had passed for him to go his own way.)

Alex was part of the inspiration for my writing on what I call Paths Forward. It's about how and why to have some kinda path open by which your mistakes can be corrected and rational people can resolve disagreements with you instead of hitting a 100% impasse with no way to make progress. We should expect to be mistaken about some of our ideas (we're fallible), and in some cases other people know a better idea and would like to tell us, and it's bad to design our intellectual life in a way that that help cannot reach us. I've found pretty much all intellectuals in the world are uninterested in criticism and corrections. Many will discuss a bit, but then they just stop without having any methods of reaching some sort of resolution, and they don't really care. You can ask them something like: "What if you're wrong and your response to me essentially means you plan to stay wrong for the rest of your life? If you're wrong, much of your career will be a waste or actively harmful. And yet you have not addressed the following arguments that you're wrong, nor can you link to anyone else who has ever answered them..." And the answer is generally just: "I guess I'll risk it." And they don't care enough to take an interest in trying to create methods to enable a better answer. Sad! http://fallibleideas.com/paths-forward

An aspect of this which came up with Alex is he would respond to disagreements a few times but then stop, rather than doing enough back-and-forth to make serious progress. So I explained to him the proper pattern of discussion with really knowledgeable people who disagree:

I say something that Alex already has an answer to. We can't skip this step because I don't know which answer Alex will give. He briefly gives the answer, which I've heard before, and I say my answer to that. He can't predict my answer because there are several common answers. Then he says his next answer (that I've heard before, and already have an answer to, but can't predict due to there being other answers that other people use). And so on. You have to go back and forth repeatedly (but it should go quickly) to get to the first part where someone says something the other guy hasn't heard before. But he wouldn't do that, so it shut down discussion. (Virtually no one will do it.)

Alex was not receptive to this explanation and approach (nor did he explain why it's false). He seemed to think basically what everyone else also seems to think: that he was busy and that it was fine for him to just make unexplained judgement calls about what issues to pursue and what issues to be confident he's right about and ignore criticism regarding. Whereas I think that basically a serious intellectual should either answer a challenge, acknowledge he hasn't gotten around to answering it and therefore doesn't know in advance what conclusion he would reach if he had time for it (stay neutral), or link to anything written by anyone (other people or yourself in the past) which addressed the issue and you will endorse and take responsibility for. See the Paths Forward essays for more info.

BTW I found that Harry Binswanger was willing to discuss more than Alex, but it was only temporary and he then banned my dissent because – he said – some of his customers didn't like it. But if that was the whole issue, he would have continued discussing with me on another forum or privately. See my final summary, criticism, and moral judgement regarding Binswanger: http://curi.us/1930-harry-binswanger-refuses-to-think

My best judgement is that George Reisman is in the right in his dispute with Peikoff/ARI/Binswanger.

I hope you'll be interested in discussing some of this or some philosophy ideas. I bet we could find something we disagree about, in which case at least one of us could learn that we were mistaken. That appeals to me and hopefully to you too.

I discovered Charles recently, and sent him an Email response to one of his videos, to which he hasn't replied. Later on I found myself disagreeing with him on every topic, despite the fact that his videos are supposed to be the Objectivist response to things, and me being Objectivist. In the first videos of him I that watched he already said that utilitarians are intrinsicists (who they aren't, but they are still wrong), that mindfulness is about turning your mind off, That Antifa is more worthy of denunciation than the alt-right, etc. I also disagree with his idea of where natural rights come from.

Tew's criticism of Yaron Brook is on him being focused on his pragmatic expertise instead of more fundamental issues. The interesting thing is, I watched Tew's video just after coming across a criticsm about Yaron being too deontological and displaying little knowledge about the topic at hand. All I have to say is that Yaron is neither a philosopher nor an economist. He is a communicator of Ideas and he great at it. I heard Yaron talk about Jordan Peterson, and I think that this is when he makes a mistake. Yaron is trying to put forward the message that Rand is better than Peterson, like they are at all comparable. You can be virtuous without being a Rand fan, the same way the businessmen in Atlas Shrugged learned about rational philosophy only after they arrived at the valley. Also, like Yaron himslef said, Peterson presents lots of different ideas which are not compatible with each other. He isn't really a Kantian. listening to him is an intellectual sport, and that's what the intellectual dark web is all about. With all due respect, I don't think Peterson is the "Toohey of the right".

I actually really like ARI people like Brook, Salmieri and Peikoff. They are really stand up to Objectivism. I always get disappointed with independent non-conforming Objectivists. I think that Atlas Society, for example is really embarrassing.

I really agree with your paths forward thing. I think the Socratic method of back and fourth dialectic is a very efficient way of getting smarter. People are wrong to back off when they hear something counter-intuitive. Only if you push the boundaries of the conversation you can reach new insights. You shouldn't just be able to tell something is wrong, but also tell why.

For the comment above me I'll reply that an Objectivist has all the right reasons to dislike Stephan.

> For the comment above me I'll reply that an Objectivist has all the right reasons to dislike Stephan.

I think FF wrote that comment because he knows that I dislike Molyneux. He was trying to give me useful information that reflects positively on Tew.

> I actually really like ARI

In general I dislike ARI. I don't find them very similar to Rand. I think they're kinda boring, too leftist, and seeking mainstream and academic respectability. And they don't have an online discussion forum. There's no good way to ask questions about Objectivism or debate some ideas with them.

I'm also very bothered that ARI excommunicated George Reisman, former board member, student of Mises and Rand, author of the masterpiece *Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics*. ARI's hostility to Reisman delayed me getting to read his book for many years, and prevents many other people from finding out about it. You can find details about the conflict online and I think they reflect badly on Peikoff and ARI.

(I don't like The Atlas Society either.)

> [I disagree with Tew] that mindfulness is about turning your mind off, That Antifa is more worthy of denunciation than the alt-right, etc.

I watched some more videos and agreed with a bunch of things Tew said. I think "mindfulness" isn't anything like a rational philosophy, and that antifa is much worse than the "alt-right". I have an article on antifa:

> Tew's criticism of Yaron Brook is on him being focused on his pragmatic expertise instead of more fundamental issues.

I think Brook's pragmatic attempt to be popular by catering to Peterson's big audience is a *fundamental*, philosophical issue (which Rand covered masterfully in her books).

I also think it's *impractical* and won't work, in part because ARI has no one who can stand up to Peterson in the *social* aspects of a debate. A real-time, in-person, verbal debate is a *show* – if they cared about cooperative truth-seeking they'd do it in writing over a period of more than one day so they had more time to think, research, etc, and in order to better keep emotions and social dynamics out of the discussion.

As far as impressing mainstream audiences in a debate-show, Peterson is better at it than ARI's speakers. That's part of why he's popular. He presents himself better according to the mainstream (irrational) social interaction game. I'm confident of this because e.g. there already was a discussion with Ghate, Peterson and Rubin which you can watch on YouTube, and Ghate fails to stand out or be memorable, and Peterson dominates the discussion. ARI already tried talking to Peterson and they weren't effective – the social signals said Ghate was weak and Peterson was strong. And the intellectual content Ghate said wasn't anywhere near spectacular enough to make up for this.

> I really agree with your paths forward thing.

Great. Unfortunately, I don't think there are any Paths Forward for me (or pretty much anyone) to correct Peterson or ARI about anything (or, perhaps, get some corrections from them). But maybe we can keep chatting and resolve some disagreements or share helpful ideas.

> With all due respect, I don't think Peterson is the "Toohey of the right".

I think Peterson has some seriously bad ideas, and some interesting ones mixed in. I was particularly disturbed when Peterson advocated the initiation of physical force against children in his new book. I finished watching his two sets of psychology lectures (his best material, IMO) and did not finish the book or the biblical lectures.

I think Peterson could just be ignored, unlike Toohey. There are plenty of people with bad ideas – the majority of them worse than Peterson. If Peterson wasn't popular, someone else would be. If Peterson disappeared it wouldn't fix the world situation. Things will only improve when great ideas are created and spread more. Giving Peterson some Objectivist *sanction* is a bad idea, though.

He calls my writings "poorly written and dumb" and "so profoundly mistaken", doesn't name me (cowardice? a favor!? not wanting people to be able to read what i said and judge for themselves?), and then attacks a very short, misleading statement of what I think, with no use of quoting and no noticeable attempt to understand what I actually meant *in context*. You can hear him laughing at me.

I'd forgive him if he'd reconsider and have a rational discussion about the matter. But I fear he won't be willing to do that.

Tew apparently won't answer my arguments or Popper's arguments. And nor will anyone who agrees with Tew. (There are a couple anti-Popper articles by Objectivists but they grossly misrepresent Popper's views – in the same standard ways that non-Objectivists do. They seem to be largely going by secondary sources on Popper.)

What can be done, besides give up on Tew? Are there any solutions or is he just sabotaging any potential progress – for either of us – so hard that nothing can be done?

It's so asymmetric. I'm looking for any way forward and he's looking to block any way forward.

Tew thinks you're not who you claim to be. Will he check his beliefs by giving you any challenge or test? Why doesn't he ask you a couple hard questions? He could use generic ones and reuse them with other people in the future, and post them publicly somewhere that anyone can comment (so then anyone good in the world could potentially get Tew's attention). (You, curi, don't need to post a challenge like that because you already talk to people.)

Tew is correct that *the thing he thinks I meant* – the idea he attributes to me – is profoundly stupid. I agree with him that that is profoundly stupid. I meant something else. I can sympathize with laughing at that the bad idea Tew had in mind, and I can forgive being misunderstood. But there appears to be no way to clear up the misunderstanding because Tew, like his idol HB, doesn't act like a philosophical detective.

From my HB criticism that Dagny just linked, I quote Rand:

> At their first encounter with modern philosophy [like Kant], many people make the mistake of dropping it and running, with the thought: “I know it’s false, but I can’t prove it. I know something’s wrong there, but I can’t waste my time and effort trying to untangle it.” Here is the danger of such a policy: ...

Tew thinks I was some bad, modern philosophy. And what does he do? Drop it and run without untangling it, without any kind of proving his case and putting effort into the matter.

> What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an “open mind,” but an active mind—a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically.

But Tew isn't eager and willing to examine the ideas enough to find out what I actually meant (or to at least make some sort of serious attempt at analysis of what I was getting at, and create some possibility of clarification). Finding out what I meant is a prerequisite for critical examination.

A way to begin thinking about the matter is by carefully considering what "How do we know X?" means other than "What authority justifies X?"

That "How do we know?" question isn't normally considered to be answered by simply describing the process: "I read that in a textbook, heard my teacher explain it, thought about it a bit while doing homework problems, and that's the story of how I learned it." It's asking for something else (justification), because that process is compatible with being mistaken.

Another way to approach the matter is to realize: we aren't on the same page, we are working from different premises and background knowledge. If he understood and agreed with Popper, I bet it'd be easy to clear the issue up. So, then, what has Tew done to study Popper and conclude Popper is wrong about induction? Which rebuttal of Popper has Tew created or would Tew endorse? What essay by Tew or anyone else describes the problems with induction Popper raised and their solution? What essay, by Tew or anyone else, correctly describes Popper's positive epistemology and points out a decisive flaw in it?

If he would respond at all, one of the many solutions is I could *donate to support his work*, in return for him reconsidering. I don't mind doing that to persuade him that I really do agree with and appreciate – hugely! – some things he said. He could refund the donation if/when he decided that he was mistaken about me (I'd accept the risk of never getting it back – it'd be up to his judgement – if he still loathes me after some discussion then he can keep the money to make up for wasting his time as he sees it). Isn't that fair and reasonable, and should be enough to merit a second look?

Some concerns would be:

1) Would I be sanctioning someone who slandered me and also is promoting some other bad ideas?

Answer: I don't think it'd be sanctioning him any more than I already have: as someone with some significant positive attributes – enough for me to notice and take interest.

2) Wouldn't it create a bad social status dynamic if you were his donor? It sorta implies he's your better, and funding his work is more important than funding your own work.

Answer: Yes, but fuck conventional social dynamics. I'm willing to ignore them. Also that issue will be resolved if/when he returned the money and is one of the reasons he should apologize, and return the money, if he discovered he was mistaken about me.

Reaching out to philosophers with some merit is part of my work, so this is a reasonable use of my funds. And I can afford it.

And accurately framing what I'm doing, and why – putting my money where my mouth is regarding Paths Forward – should fix the social dynamics in the minds of rational people. (It'd also be putting my money where my mouth is regarding the value of my time – money I donate to Tew would be considerably less important than the time I've already spent on this).

I could write to Tew one more time and ask what size donation would get him to reconsider and discuss, and if he's fine with the terms (if he judges that he misjudged me, he refunds it). I don't think I'd be willing to lead with a donation to someone who seems unwilling to say a word to me, but if he responded with an amount then at that point we'd be on speaking terms. (I think being on speaking terms, to some minimal extent instead of none, is a requirement before sending him any money.)

Charles, I gather that you've read some of my writing on induction and justification, and you thought it was profoundly stupid.

I agree with you that the position you believe I advocated is profoundly stupid. But it's not what I meant.

I think some things you say in your videos are really great. I also disagree with some. I'm interested in discussing. We both agree there aren't many worthwhile people in the world, so I don't want us to miss this opportunity.

Will you reconsider? Will you discuss, at all, to allow fixing any misunderstandings?

I think you hate Popper too much to believe me. Something like that. The Objectivist community in general has misunderstood Popper due to poor scholarship, such as reliance on secondary sources. (The secondary sources on Popper, written by his opponents, are about as bad as the secondary sources on Objectivism, written by its opponents.) We could go into examples and specifics, as I've done before, but found no anti-Popper Objectivists were willing and competent to discuss much.

There should be some way to get past our impasse so that we can find out whose right, whose wrong, and why. Since it looks like you don't want to risk your time on me, I think I have a solution. What size donation would adequately convey my seriousness to you and get you to reconsider and discuss? The terms I propose are: if you judge that you were mistaken about me, you refund it. I'll risk it.

Note that Tew literally sells one-on-one philosophy lessons for money. (I knew that when thinking he might be willing to spend time on something if there was money in it for him.) So presumably he'd sell lessons to me, right? That's another way to frame the proposal. It looks like he doesn't have the fanbase to be picky (though perhaps he would be anyway, and think it was like Roark turning down the job and going to the quarry instead), and he has signaled he needs the money. A few days ago, while fixing his badly broken website, he actually removed the part of his website advertising this service, which I think indicates he had few to zero clients. I imagine he could be flexible enough for it to be more discussion than pure teaching (like lecturing me).

Note: Popper is considerably more mixed than Rand. E.g. he's pretty bad about politics. I do not endorse Popper as a whole. I specifically think he made a valuable breakthrough in epistemology, which has been misunderstood by virtually everyone.

And new text about lessons:

In the alternative, I could hire you for a philosophy lesson, since I understand you sell those. I would like be to corrected by you about Popper, Deutsch, induction and justificationism, if you're able to do that.

> In the alternative, I could hire you for a philosophy lesson, since I understand you sell those. I would like be to corrected by you about Popper, Deutsch, induction and justificationism, if you're able to do that.

>In the alternative, I could hire you for a philosophy lesson, since I understand you sell those. I would like be to corrected by you about Popper, Deutsch, induction and justificationism, if you're able to do that.

Charles, someone let me know you’d already commented on me in a video. I gather that you've read some of my writing on induction and justification, and you thought it was profoundly stupid.

I agree with you that the position you believe I advocated is profoundly stupid. But it's not what I meant.

I think some things you say in your videos are really great. I also disagree with some. I'm interested in discussing. We both agree there aren't many worthwhile people in the world, so I don't want us to miss this opportunity.

Will you reconsider? Will you discuss, at all, to allow fixing any misunderstandings?

You suggested that my claim to be influenced by Rand is false. Will you look at my writing about Rand and repeat that? (“You know, Dagny, I’d like you to remember which side you said I’m on. Some day, I’ll remind you of it and ask you whether you’ll want to repeat it.”) E.g. https://learnobjectivism.com/atlas-shrugged-chapter-1

I’m concerned you despise Popper too much to believe me. Something like that. The Objectivist community in general has misunderstood Popper due to poor scholarship, such as reliance on secondary sources. (The secondary sources on Popper by Popper’s opponents are about as unreliable as the secondary sources on Rand by Rand’s opponents.) We could go into examples and specifics, as I've done before, but I’ve found no anti-Popper Objectivists were willing and competent to discuss it much. Have you researched this yourself using primary sources?

Note: Popper is far more mixed than Rand. E.g. he's pretty bad about politics. I do not endorse Popper as a whole. I specifically think he made a valuable breakthrough in epistemology, which has been misunderstood by virtually everyone, and which leads to conclusions that are compatible with the bulk of Objectivism.

There should be some way to get past our impasse and resolve this disagreement. Note that if I'm right, you don't lose. We can both be better off in big ways. Since it looks like you don't want to risk your time on me, I think I have a solution.

What size donation would adequately convey my seriousness to you and get you to reconsider and discuss? The terms I propose are: if you judge that you were mistaken about me, you refund it. I think we both love money, but I’ll risk it on your integrity. (‘“You knew you were taking a terrible kind of chance?” “None at all. I had an ally I could trust.” “What? Your integrity?” “Yours, Gail.”’)

In the alternative, I could hire you for a philosophy lesson, since I understand you sell those. I would like to be corrected by you about Popper, Deutsch, induction and justificationism. Is that a service you’re able to provide?

If you still refuse, then I have a final request of you. Name me publicly and pronounce moral judgement of me, as Rand would have wanted. (Note that you’d have to prove your case to the standard that it would persuade a rational inquirer: ‘When one pronounces moral judgment, whether in praise or in blame, one must be prepared to answer “Why?” and to prove one’s case—to oneself and to any rational inquirer.’)

> Based on the comments I'm getting on YouTube, a mgtow called sandman mentioned me. I analyzed mgtow only because someone paid me to and I knew I could explain the nature of its stupidity. I'm not actually interested in whatever its moronic followers have to say.

Apparently he will fake an interest in stuff if paid, but not seriously try to understand. Instead of doing paid analysis objectively, he maintained a really biased, hostile attitude throughout.

As a result, he did a bad job. I listened to a bit of his MGTOW commentary and he was complaining how different MGTOW supporters contradicted each other (you can also find Objectivists who contradict each other...)

MGTOW ain't perfect, but if he looked at it reasonably he could find some value and good points there. But I think he wasn't willing to do that even when he was paid to (I haven't listened to the main video he did about MGTOW though, just a bit in the same one with Epstein criticism). Looks like he had a pre-determined conclusion in advance of his investigation, and never looked at it with a neutral mindset. (Or maybe he was paid to attack MGTOW? It could be that that's what the customer wanted.)

*This looks grim in terms of the possibility of paying him to be reasonable about Popper stuff.* I was hoping that, as an Objectivist, he'd take money more seriously than he appears to.

---

He's in a lot of pain (as you can see from many tweets) and it's destroying him. I'd like to help but maybe I should let it go. Or anyone got a good idea?

I think they still do it some. The audience is just *themselves*. Even when alone, ppl spend a lot of thought trying to convince themselves that they are morally superior to other ppl. Laughing at ppl is one strategy for this.

> I think they still do it some. The audience is just *themselves*. Even when alone, ppl spend a lot of thought trying to convince themselves that they are morally superior to other ppl. Laughing at ppl is one strategy for this.

Yeah I was thinking more about this too. I agree with you now. People do laugh at others when they're alone.